


Simple, Clean and Wrong

by misanthropyray



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-11
Updated: 2011-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:42:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropyray/pseuds/misanthropyray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When I think of how many lives I’ve saved, I think I deserve one in return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple, Clean and Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: The impossibly wonderful thisprettywren  
> Author's Notes: Please don't read this if you have a heart/soul/any sense of human compassion. There is nothing for you here. Only darkness. In fact, even if you don't have any of those things, you probably shouldn't read it. Anyone who doesn't heed this warning: the consequences are not my responsibility.

When I first met John, I saw him as both a challenge and an opportunity.

He was what society considered a good person; a doctor, a war hero, trustworthy and loyal. He represented everything I didn’t. I could learn something from this man. The world doesn’t see a difference between good people and bad people who do good things, so there could be a chance for me. Even if I didn’t feel friendship, felt no connection to the people in my life who seemed to care for me, I could learn how to reflect it back to them, act out the person they wanted me to be despite the emptiness.

It was easy in the short term; I could make people believe whatever I wanted for up to a few days but over a long period of time, the mask would start to slip and they always begin to notice that something was wrong. Further study was required and Dr Watson was the perfect role model.

And that’s how it began.

 

====

 

The plan was more of a general notion than a coherent course of action. Something that I picked up and toyed with when boredom threatened to wrap its cruel tendrils around my brain or when some petty annoyance became overwhelming.

No decisions had been made yet. Not only about times or places, but whether anything would happen at all.

Was it really necessary?

Probably not, but I find that few things in life truly are.

Without knowing for certain that I would go through with it at all, I did eventually decide on a few basic factors. Firstly, I would want his end to be by my hand; no guns or poisons. Secondly, I wouldn’t want to cause him excessive pain. And finally, I would want him to know that it was me; no accident or slip up, but an intentional act of destruction.

 

====

 

John was fiercely loyal. Once he formed a bond with a person, they seemed to be considered a part of his life, ad infinitum. He would ignore their flaws and errors with blind acceptance. A friend of John’s was a friend for life, rough with the smooth. For better or worse.

I could never do that. It’s not that I didn’t like other people (it’s foolish to make judgements without data) but other people had always, without exception, been a disappointment to me.

As a child, I imagined that it would just be a time, that I would find the one person who didn’t disappoint me and they would be my friend, my love, my other half. Because that’s what people are supposed to want, isn’t it? That’s what’s supposed to happen and if it didn’t happen sooner, it was sure to happen later. But it never did. After a while, I stopped expecting it to.

I tried, I really did.

 

====

 

I was finally afforded an evening of blissful, uninterrupted silence one evening in December. John was attending the surgery’s Christmas staff function and didn’t return to the flat until the small hours of the morning. His weighted and uneven footsteps on the stairs outside told the story of his evening before he managed to stumble through the door.

He landed in his chair with a heavy thump, filling the room with the smell of rank beer mixed with a hint of whisky. He sighed in relief, as though he’d finished a journey across the Arctic tundra, rolling his head backwards and flashing the wintry pale skin of his neck at me.

It was perfect.

The moment, the one I thought hypothetical, had arrived. The conditions were almost ideal; Mycroft was out of the country on business and although he’d tried to bug the flat, I was sure I’d destroyed the last of the devices; the CCTV camera across the road that was constantly trained on the front windows was blocked by the curtains, coincidentally closed following a flickering streetlight outside; and most importantly, here was John. Intoxicated, weak, and not expected back at work for another 2 days. That gave me at least as long to clean up my little mess.

“Would you like a drink, John?”

 

====

 

In between cases, I lie dormant. Trivial little matters pass the time until either I crack or I get the call that something new has arrived to consume my attentions. John always tried to be so tactful during the in between times. He would gently enquire about whether Lestrade had any interesting cases we could get involved with but his interest wasn’t purely kind hearted. I could see the tremor in his hand, the gradual stiffening of his leg as the quiet days dragged by.

Even during a case, he could never just let me work. A misguided sense of concern for some victim or other, together with the love of the chase, led to constant interruptions. To think, to really think, I need perfect stillness. To disappear into my own mind, I need to try and detach myself from all reminders of my physical form; sounds, smells, unnecessary pacing and movement, they all pollute the silence. Silence is a luxury commodity and, when sharing a house with Dr Watson, irritatingly elusive.

I can’t even count how many crimes have been committed because the good doctor decided to boil the kettle or turn on some inane television program.

My existence before John had been light and he was weight; weighing me down, trying to keep me grounded. It was after about ten months that I decided to cut the tethers.

 

====

 

I went to the kitchen, digging out one of the lagers that had been in our fridge for the past month without waiting for his reply. There was a look of dumb surprise when he turned his head and noticed me standing next to him holding out the can, followed by a grin. He took the tin with a jerk, spilling some foam over his trousers which went unnoticed.

I returned to my seat beside him. I looked at John, really looked at him. I could see the rise and fall of his chest and the blue of the blood pumping through his veins and the soft pulse of a heartbeat. I saw his flushed lips and I imagined how they would look when his last breath escaped them. I saw his strong hands and imagined them shaking as the final twitches of life left them lying in perfect stillness.

When my eyes drifted back to his face, he met my gaze and misinterpreted it. A hand found its way to my shoulder and snaked up my neck; I hadn’t moved a muscle, but that didn’t seem to matter as his face gravitated towards mine. I didn’t stop him as his tongue gently parted my lips and slid inside my mouth; a goodbye present, a last act of charity. His mouth was warm and tasted like alcohol and his nose puffed hot air onto my face. As another hand found my thigh, I pulled away.

“Sherlock, I--”

“Stay here.”

 

====

 

It was difficult at first, adjusting to life with John. For the first month or so, I simply observed him; his mannerisms, his reaction to a range of day to day stimuli, his ideas of what was considered acceptable and what was a ‘bit not good’. After that initial observation period, I began a phase of reciprocation. The first time I asked him if he would like a cup of tea, entirely unprompted, he had the strangest look in his eye. I think it might have been affection. It’s difficult to be certain.

The purpose of the reciprocation period wasn’t to test the theory that bad people can do good things and be considered good; that’s a given. It was to ascertain the terms of the idea friendship between myself and John. I had never had a person who considered me a friend or companion before, so it was crucial to test the boundaries and limitations of this arrangement.

He would lay his life on the line for me, that was proven in the first week that we began our cohabitation, but he often begrudged smaller day-to-day tasks when there seemed to be no sense of equality. The smallest acts of consideration towards him incurred a disproportionate increase in his general compliance; they say you attract more flies with honey.

But there were rules to this game that I didn’t understand. I should have come to terms with that fact years ago.

 

====

 

In the bathroom cabinet lay the box of diazepam that John kept for when the nightmares became too much for him to bear. In its own way, now was one of those times, though he didn’t know it yet. I pressed four tablets through the layer of foil on the blister pack and closed the mirrored cabinet door.

Looking into my own eyes, I wondered if I could really go through with it. Was I really the monster that people had always assumed? From the whispers behind my back as a child to the sneers of Anderson and his cohorts; had they seen something in me that I had missed, or had their barbs made me this way? It seemed futile to try and place blame.

Could I take a life, not in revenge or need or self preservation, but simply to feel the life ebb out of another human being beneath my fingers? If I were to do this, to know this about myself for absolute certain, would my life change? Or, perhaps worse, would it continue on in precisely the same way? I could walk down the street, certain of my control over the fragile spark of human mortality.

Time would tell.

I returned to the living room to find John dosing, sprawled messily on the sofa. I dug out the bottle of gin that was gathering dust in a cupboard. John had bought the bottle soon after moving into 221b with talk of a housewarming party. It wasn’t a coincidence that something always came up when the dreaded date loomed. The lid was stiff but gave with a loud crack and I poured the liquid into two clean-looking tumblers.

With two teaspoons, I crushed the tablets and stirred them into one of the glasses. They dissolved into the alcohol giving it a pale blue tint. Looking at the light shining through the solution made the heart pound in my chest.

Tucking two more cans of beer under my arm, I carried the glasses through to the lounge.

“Gin with a lager chaser.” I announced as I walked into the room, waking John with a start.

“I don’t know if I should--”

“Cheers.”

I threw the burning liquid down my throat before John had a chance to notice the differing colours in the glasses. Stared at me as he put it to his lips and swallowed. In that moment, he was mine. John was fiercely loyal; he would do anything for me.

 

I knew he would die for me.

 

I moved to the CD player on the desk. I needed something appropriate, and ran my fingers across the haphazard pile of CDs until I found it. I lifted the disk out of its case and placed it into the cradle where it began with a mechanical whir.

 _Baby, I've been waiting, I've been waiting night and day._

 _I didn't see the time, I waited half my life away._

I sat back on the sofa and put an arm up on the back cushions. John gently leaned back into me, resting his head against my shoulder. I could feel his mouth smiling into my neck. I asked him to tell me about his day to keep him talking and he told me of the evening’s events, casual flirtation and drinking. I listened to the music, husky and growling and mixing with the hum of traffic outside. John’s words started to slur and fade off. He nuzzled my neck and planted a kiss onto my collarbone before his eyes fluttered closed.

It was too soon to be sure.

 

====

 

I could never pin point the exact moment I became sure this wasn’t going to work. The first thing that began to eat away at me was the constant sense of his general presence. For the first few cases, I had invited him. After that, it became an assumption.

He was as reliant on the rush of adrenaline as I, he craved the thrill of the chase, but without any source of his own excitement, he was always on my heels. I would chase a new lead, time would be of the essence, and he would be lagging behind me. After that first time in Brixton, when I left him without a second thought, he seemed to stay in my wake with an almost admirable tenacity.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was the one who disappeared into the night and returned with the lowly criminal at hand. I would be chasing after them and John was chasing after me.

I never quite managed to outrun him.

 

====

 

I stayed still under John’s weight, laying an arm across his chest and feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breath. I ran my hands over him as he slept against me; I felt the warmth of his skin under my fingers.

 _Let's be alone together. Let's see if we're that strong._

 _Yeah let's do something crazy, something absolutely wrong._

It would be at least an hour before I could be sure that he was fully sedated and wasn’t just in a drunken slumber. I took the time to savour the moment. I documented everything about him; his weight against my chest, the smell of his hair, the feel of it as I combed my fingers through; the scent of him, masked by deodorant, smoke and alcohol but still unmistakably John.

These details needed to be remembered. Like a first kiss or a first fuck, a first kill needed to be committed to that part of the brain that is never deleted, that forever holds irrelevant details like the time of day or the music or the feel of clothing against skin.

His breath was low and hot against my neck. I interlaced our fingers and raised his arm, dropping it and watching it fall. No reaction.

I pinched his forearm hard, leaving two angry crescent moons on his skin. No reaction.

 

It was time.

 

With my free hand, I undid my belt buckle, moving my hips against John and pulling it through the loops to freedom. The leather was thick and soft under my fingers. I passed one end underneath John’s sleeping form and lay it over his shoulders, looping the end loosely back through the buckle.

Was I really going to do this? Could I go through with this one action that would end one life and change another irreversibly? Did I even want to know what I was capable of? Maybe I could learn the art of friendship, learn the art of love. Maybe I could find a mate, start a family, marry, get a mortgage and a car. Or maybe this was how it was always supposed to be.

When I think of how many lives I’ve saved, I think I deserve one in return.

As the buckle edged up the belt, I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins, making me conscious of every point of contact pressing against me, every sound in the room. A quiet click and the leather lay flush against the soft skin of his neck.

 

The clock read 02:34.

 

====

 

In the same way that I’m unsure when I decided to find a way out, I’m also uncertain when I first realised John was in love with me. I’m certain it hadn’t been an instant attraction but as time went on, I began to notice a change in him.

His eyes began to linger on me, or sought me out when he thought my attention was elsewhere. His declarations of awe and encouragement became tipped with a sense of pride. He was proud to stand by my side, feeding off my successes; proud to bask in my brilliant light like a lizard in the sun. The situation could easily be kept at bay in the presence of others, never wanting to give people the wrong idea, he would keep his distance but the atmosphere was different when we returned to the flat.

He wasn’t consciously doing it, that much was obvious, but as soon as we were alone, it would begin. He would take my coat and his fingertips would brush across my arms. He would pass my tea with a slight overlapping of our fingers. The sofa seemed to halve in size.

John seemed to be entirely unaware of these moments of tactility as well as any attempts I made to show my discomfort. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything more from him. To expect anything is to expect disappointment.

 

====

 

One smooth motion of my arm and the belt tightened.

 _Give me absolute control, over every other living soul_

 _And lie beside me, baby, that's an order._

The reaction took only a split second. John’s eye flew open and his body jerk against me, more in surprise than retaliation. I wrapped my legs tight around his body, holding him against me as his hands reached up to his neck, fingers trying to find purchase on the smooth leather. His limbs were heavy and slow, his body weakened and intoxicated but thrashing with the accompanying adrenaline.

His entire body lurched and writhed against me, back arching and hips bucking. I wrapped my hand around his torso, holding him to me and he twisted and strained.

 

“I’m sorry, John. You should have known.”

His head twisted to face me, eyes searching mine. I saw my reply.

 _I’ve always known._

As I looked at him with his brow tightly furrowed and his mouth desperately searching for air, I saw acceptance.

The muscles in my arm burned with the unrelenting strain and my hands twisted around the leather to keep it taught. I watched the clock as the seconds dragged on.

We lay together on the sofa, bodies flush against each other and coated in a sheen of sweat, when everything went still. I didn’t move. A full minute passed before I slackened my arm, feeling the bones creaking in complaint.

I let out a breath with a great heave.

I breathed against the weight still bearing down on me. I felt something; movement. It was so slight I almost doubted myself, until I felt it again. I picked up the belt again quickly, fumbling with it this time in the confusion until I saw his chest laying still against mine.

The last tremors jolted through his system, his limbs twitching in a tortured dance, before departing to perfect stillness.

 _When they said “Repent! Repent!”_

 __

_I wonder what they meant._

I dropped the belt onto the floor and held him against me. His face looked so relaxed. When he had slept, tortured by endless nightmares, he had never looked this peaceful.

 

The clock read 02:42.

 

I wrapped my arms around his torso, feeling the stillness where his heart should have been pounding and lungs rising and falling. I curled my body around his, touching my cheek against the smoothed skin of his neck where the belt had lain.

He was mine now. We would always have this.

As we basked in the dull yellow glow of the streetlight filtering through the curtains, I thought about the look. Could he have known? In that look, I had seen another person giving themselves to me. I had forced a life, but it had been given to me to take. He’d seen me, seen my darkness alongside my brilliance and he had accepted it all. I suppose I understand now.

 

The faithful solider, loyal until the end.

 


End file.
